Jail Population Increases Despite Reforms + Mayoral Race Takes Shape
No 198
Monday, December 28, 2020
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Local News
- Despite recent bail reforms, the city’s jail population has increased this year, primarily due to people being held on pre-trial detention.
- Two major redevelopment projects on Franklin Avenue in Crown Heights experienced significant setbacks as a result of activist pressure. A lawsuit filed in part by DSA-endorsed City Council candidate Michael Hollingsworth (District 35, Crown Heights) to overturn a 2018 rezoning on Franklin between Carroll and Crown Streets was successful. Mayor de Blasio also announced his opposition to a project at the Spice Factory site one block to the south.
- Despite COVID-19’s devastating impact on incarcerated populations, Governor Cuomo has granted only 12 sentencing commutations, of over 2,500 requested, in 2020.
- Representatives of various industries and unions, including ride-sharing services, transit, and hotel and hospitality, are pressuring Governor Cuomo and State officials to include their workers in the next round of COVID vaccine distribution.
- Governor Cuomo signed New York’s first automatic voter registration bill into law. Several state agencies will now automatically register individuals to vote when they interact with the agency.
- The Nation looked at how NYC-DSA’s elected candidates will impact the upcoming legislative session.
Elections
- Andrew Yang has filed paperwork to formally enter the 2021 mayoral race.
- The Working Families Party endorsed Jumaane Williams for re-election as Public Advocate and Council Member Brad Lander in an open field for Comptroller.
- The New York Times pitted gentrifying leftists against older, working-class communities of color in its assessment of the City’s upcoming mayoral race.
- With six months to go before the mayoral primary, it is unclear if the Republican nomination will be contested.
- In a closed-door, sparsely-attended virtual meeting, Brooklyn Democratic Party leaders elected outgoing Bedford-Stuyvesant Assemblywoman Tremaine Wright as the new ceremonial party chair. Sunset Park District Leader Julio Peña called the vote illegal, noting in a tweet that the vote violated the Party’s own rules around filling vacant positions.
- An analysis by The New York Times of 2020 election results found that President Trump improved on his 2016 showing, increasing his share of votes in nearly all of the city’s 65 assembly districts.